Green homes, the government is studying two-way tax bonuses. Pichetto: «Objectives impossible to achieve»

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«We will also try to stay within those objectives but, although the text of the directive has improved, we must be realistic. For us these are difficult objectives, indeed, let’s even say impossible.” It is the Minister of the Environment Gilberto Pichetto Fratin who immediately underlines that “time and money” are needed for the directive on green homes and that the new directive is not implementable on the 2030 and 2033 objectives set by Brussels despite Italy’s vote once morest on the real estate assets of Italians. In an interview with Corriere delle Sera, the head of the department specified that Italy will “get to work on the national building renovation plan envisaged by the European directive, but will do so by looking at the final European objectives of 2050 on climate change”.

A two-way green house tax bonus

To support the enormous economic effort that the directive imposes on Italian property owners, the minister and the Government itself have already indicated a possible path of intervention by also including it in the recently approved Economic and Financial Document. For Pichetto, the possible path is to once once more resort to tax leverage, but in a controlled way to avoid distortions of the Superbonus. How then? «For taxpayers who have high incomes, explains the minister, a deduction might be introduced with a rate to be defined. For those with low incomes, another system is needed. Even with a direct contribution from the State. For public buildings, the ESCOs, companies that finance the interventions and for a while energy savings are maintained, can be involved and the thermal account of the Energy Services Manager (GSE) can be used.”

What does the Def provide?

The annex to the Def developed by the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security (Mase) outlines the directions of the new intervention to support the energy efficiency measures of buildings. In particular, Mase writes precisely to respond «to the challenging objectives for the residential sector by 2030 and 2050 foreseen by the new EED and EPBD directives (so-called green houses) and by the National Integrated Plan for Energy and Climate (Pniec), the implementation of a general reform of tax deductions is expected, which addresses the redevelopment works of existing residential buildings with an integrated and efficient approach and overcomes the current fragmentation of the various deductions currently active”. In essence, the government’s intentions include the idea of ​​«an integrated approach» which «would allow optimizing the timing and costs of redeveloping a building, favoring in-depth redevelopment interventions with a view to sustainability that affects various areas: the energy one, in terms of efficiency, energy production from renewable sources and the electrification of consumption; that of the digitalisation of buildings and dialogue with other infrastructures such as transport; that of safety with reference to seismic and fire prevention aspects; that of environmental protection with reference to the reduction of water consumption and the use of greenery”.

An Environment and Economy working group

For Minister Pichetto it is therefore a question of starting «a very careful selection process» and to do so he underlines «I have already given a mandate to the working group established for the Plan, which will then be agreed with the Minister of Economy. Even with the exceptions, an immense number of interventions remain to be done.” However, there is the issue of resources as well as the peculiarity of Italy compared to the rest of Europe: «70% of Italian buildings are over 70 years old. Potentially those affected by the directive are millions. We will do what is possible and compatible with public finance balances.”